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Bound4LIFE is a grassroots anti-abortion organization originating in the United States. The non-profit organization was founded in 2004 by Lou Engle and Brian while gathered for silent prayer in front of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC. A major goal of the organization is to train and multiply the number of Christians that pray regularly for the ending of abortion. [1] [2]
The key identifying element of the movement is a piece of red tape with the word "LIFE" handwritten on it that is worn over the mouth during prayer gatherings. "Taping their mouths shut" is a voluntary way of promoting prayer as opposed to vocal protest. In this context, prayer is described as an appeal to God as the Judge of heaven and earth.
The organization encourages participants to make a three-part pledge. The first deals with praying daily for abortion to end; presumably for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade to be overturned. The second part calls for participants to only vote for candidates that support a similar point of view concerning abortion. The final part calls for participants to "obey God in acts of compassion and justice." [3] [4] Sources state that over 320,000 participants have taken this pledge.
References are also made to promoting adoption as a legitimate alternative to abortion regardless of circumstances.
Bound4LIFE participants in the past have shown interest in and have attempted to directly and indirectly influence federal and state legislation through personal contact and voter mobilization.
In its 5-year anniversary issue, Relevant Magazine listed Lou Engle and the red "LIFE" tape as one of the Top 35 Ideas That Have Changed the World. [5]
James Clayton Dobson Jr. (born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FotF), which he led from 1977 until 2010. In the 1980s, he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life. Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
Concerned Women for America (CWA) is a socially conservative, evangelical Christian non-profit women's legislative action committee in the United States. Headquartered in Washington D.C., the CWA is involved in social and political movements, through which it aims to incorporate Christian ideology. The group was founded in San Diego, California in 1978 by Beverly LaHaye, whose husband Timothy LaHaye was an evangelical Christian minister and author of The Battle for the Mind, as well as coauthor of the Left Behind series.
Michael Arthur Newdow is an American attorney and emergency medicine physician. He is best known for his efforts to have recitations of the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools in the United States declared unconstitutional because of its inclusion of the phrase "under God". He also filed and lost a lawsuit to stop the invocation prayer at President Bush's second inauguration and in 2009 he filed a lawsuit to prevent references to God and religion from being part of President Obama's inauguration.
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States has been criticized on several grounds. Its use in government funded schools has been the most controversial, as critics contend that a government-sanctioned endorsement of religion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Arguments against the pledge include that the pledge itself is incompatible with democracy and freedom, that it is a form of nationalistic indoctrination, that pledges of allegiance are features of current and former totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany, and that the pledge was written to sell flags.
The March for Life is an annual rally and march against the practice and legality of abortion, held in Washington, D.C., either on or around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a decision legalizing abortion nationwide which was issued in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court. The participants in the march have advocated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which happened at the end of the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. It is a major gathering of the anti-abortion movement in the United States and it is organized by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund.
Becket, also known as the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., that describes its mission as "defending the freedom of religion of people of all faiths". Becket promotes accommodationism and is active in the judicial system, the media, and in education.
Merrill Samuel "Sam" Keiser Jr. is from Fremont, Ohio. He is an owner-operator truck driver and was a candidate in the Democratic primary for United States Senate in May 2006, for the seat held by Republican R. Michael DeWine. Ohio election law requires only 1000 signatures to run for Senate as a major party primary candidate, and Keiser claimed to single-handedly gather these signatures. He lost the primary by a large margin to Sherrod Brown for the Ohio United States Senate election, 2006, receiving 163,628 votes (21.89%).
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a theological belief and movement that combines elements of Pentecostalism, evangelicalism and the Seven Mountain Mandate to advocate for spiritual warfare to bring about Christian dominion over all aspects of society, and end or weaken the separation of church and state. NAR leaders often call themselves apostles and prophets. Long a fringe movement of the American Christian right, it has been characterized as "one of the most important shifts in Christianity in modern times." The NAR's prominence and power have increased since the 2016 election of Donald Trump as US president. Theology professor André Gagné, author of a 2024 book on the movement, has characterized it as "inherently political" and said it threatens to "subvert democracy." American Republican politicians such as Mike Johnson, Doug Mastriano, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert and activists such as Charlie Kirk have aligned with it.
William J. Murray III is an American author, Baptist minister, and social conservative lobbyist. Murray serves as the chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that lobbies Congress on issues related to aiding Christians in Islamic and Communist countries.
Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic Christian summer camp, where children spend their summers being taught that they have "prophetic gifts" and can "take back America for Christ". According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and attempts to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".
Washington for Jesus was a series of heavily-attended rallies held in Washington, D.C. by various representatives of the American Christian church in the United States. The first rally was held in 1980 on 29 and 30 April and centered primarily on promoting a Christian viewpoint in the political arena. Religious leaders present included John Gimenez, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, William Bright, and Benson Idahosa.
Wiley S. Drake is a California-based minister and radio host. He was the vice-presidential candidate for the American Independent Party ticket in California in 2008. Drake has drawn controversy for his use of imprecatory prayer. He is the pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park in Buena Park, California.
Lou Engle is an American Charismatic Christian who led TheCall, which held prayer rallies. He is an apostle in the New Apostolic Reformation movement and the president of Lou Engle Ministries. Engle was a senior leader of the International House of Prayer and has assisted in the establishment of Justice House of Prayer and several other smaller "houses" of prayer.
TheCall was an organization which sponsored prayer meetings led by Lou Engle along with other Christian leader pastors in the United States. The meetings requested prayer and fasting by Christians in protest against issues such as same-sex marriage and legal access to elective abortion. TheCall drew support from American Evangelical leaders, but was also criticized for intolerance.
Robert Leonard Schenck is an American Evangelical clergyman who has ministered to elected and appointed officials in Washington, D.C. and serves as president of a non-profit organization named for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Schenck founded the organization Faith and Action in 1995 and led it until 2018. He is the subject of the Emmy Award-winning 2016 Abigail Disney documentary, The Armor of Light. Schenck stated that he was part of a group that paid Norma McCorvey to lie that she had changed her mind and turned against abortion. Once a prominent anti-abortion activist, Schenck has since repudiated this work and expressed support for the legality of abortion. In 2022, Schenck testified before the House Judiciary Committee concerning his allegation that a member of the Supreme Court leaked information about a pending case before the Court.
Justice House of Prayer (JHOP) is a neocharismatic Christian organization based in Kansas City, Missouri that focuses on continual prayer. It was founded by Lou Engle in 2004 and now has locations in five U.S. cities. They are in close association with the International House of Prayer-Kansas City and TheCall.
Social conservatism in the United States is a political ideology focused on the preservation of traditional values and beliefs. It focuses on a concern with moral and social values which proponents of the ideology see as degraded in modern society by liberalism. In the United States, one of the largest forces of social conservatism is the Christian right.
School prayer in the United States if organized by the school is largely banned from public elementary, middle, and high schools by a series of Supreme Court decisions since 1962. Students may pray privately, and join religious clubs in after-school hours. Public schools, such as local school districts, are banned from conducting religious observances such as prayer. Private and parochial schools are not covered by these rulings, nor are colleges and universities. Elementary and secondary schools are covered because students are required to attend, and are considered more at risk from official pressure than are older students and adults. The Constitutional basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...
The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.